


Messages from the vacuum

by Gorgeous Nerd (gorgeousnerd)



Series: Yuletide [2]
Category: Sunshine (2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 17:47:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeousnerd/pseuds/Gorgeous%20Nerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Kaneda needs an answer, and Capa flips the coin.</i></p><p><i>"Tails," he says.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Messages from the vacuum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Annie D (scaramouche)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/gifts).



> Thanks to puchuupoet and nvdwrdsmth for the beta work, and everyone on my flist/rlist for much-needed cheerleading. Also on [DW](http://firmament.dreamwidth.org/46957.html) and [LJ](http://chomalfoyfics.livejournal.com/56911.html).
> 
> More specific content notes can be found in the story's end notes.

The person who decides the detour, according to Kaneda, is the person most knowledgeable about payload delivery. Capa bumps his head against the back of the wall and cringes before they mention him outright. "Shit," he whispers.

There's no good answer. The visualization he shows the captain - the one he's watched over and over the second they left Earth orbit, willing the figures to change - proves that conclusively. But Kaneda needs an answer, and Capa flips the coin.

"Tails," he says.

*

When Capa's nice, he identifies the astronauts as "former military" in his head. When Mace sits next to him at the meal just before his next shift, "jarhead" comes to mind. He does his best to shake it off when Mace says, "Thanks."

"Didn't do it for you." Apparently he can't shake it off completely.

"I know." Mace leans forward, cup clutched in between his hands. "Wouldn't be thanking you if you did."

He shoves away from the table like he never said a word. At least it's better than a headlock.

*

The air in the oxygen garden is moist and warm and everything space isn't. The breeze from the spinning blades and the filtered light is soft and gentle and everything the sun isn't. Cassie closes her eyes and just...breathes.

"Cassie?"

She cracks an eyelid and takes in Corazon standing in front of her, basket clutched in her arms.

"Hey," Cassie says quietly, rubbing a hand over her eye.

"You okay?"

"Sure."

Corazon raises an eyebrow, but she hefts the basket over to the containers. Her hair's pulled out of her face, but she's sweating, and she wipes away the drips with the edge of her glove.

"Do you think he did the right thing?" Cassie asks with a sigh.

"Who?"

Cassie ducks her head for a second and runs her hands over her scalp. It does nothing. "We could've gotten the payload."

Corazon sets the basket on the shelf. "Is that really what's bothering you?"

Of course it isn't. But judging by the gentle smile on Corazon's face, and the lack of rings under her eyes, she just might be the only one on the entire vessel not dreaming of sunspots and gravity wells, and Cassie isn't cruel.

It isn't until Corazon's kneeling next to Cassie, arms resting on her knees, that Cassie tears her eyes away from the twisted metal grates that make up the floor. Corazon smells of salt and dirt and everything they left behind.

"Maybe..."

When Cassie doesn't follow up with more words, Corazon says, "Maybe?"

"Maybe there's another way."

*

"A transmission?" Kaneda crosses his arms, but he tilts his head, waits for more.

Corazon nods. "We send the coordinates of Icarus I back to Earth."

"Uh, that isn't going to work." Harvey waves his hands. "Past Mercury? Dead zones?"

"And why can't this wait until we make it back to Earth?" This comes from Searle, who's leaning back in his chair.

Cassie thought of this. Which is good because she's on the flight deck, and Corazon's down in the kitchen with everyone free to talk. "We have the tools to make a small parcel," she says. Corazon sees the tools all the time. "We send it off before we make it to the delivery point as a backup. Capa said himself that he can't guarantee the payload will reach its destination."

Kaneda nods like he's considering. He turns to Trey and asks, "Is it possible?"

"If it's small enough," Trey says. "I have to do the calculations, but it would have to be soon."

This time, Kaneda's nod is decisive. "Let's see it through."

"Just one question."

Everyone looks toward Searle. Corazon holds her breath.

"Will we be able to include other messages?" Searle asks.

Corazon grins.

*

The green light shuts off, and the smile on Mace's face is small, but very there.

"Did it record?" he asks Harvey.

Harvey plays back a little of the message, the sound turned off to keep the waiting Capa from overhearing. But Mace can see his lips form the words, and he hears the echoes in his head.

After the message's shut off, and he's looking toward Capa, the smile isn't gone. And when Capa smiles back, Mace isn't sorry.

*

Once the body's built, Trey starts to install the shields.

In space, most of his work is theoretical: using the sensors to make guesses about the space debris in their way, laying down the foundations for alternate paths if they need, scrapping the data and starting all over again. Mace is the main crew member who works hands-on. But Trey getting to use a wrench and smearing grease on his hands looses muscles he didn't know he'd tensed, even with the ever-looming deadline.

Until he stops sleeping.

By the time he finishes, he hasn't done so much as nap for two days straight, and he sways with every step. Searle corners him after the one meal he eats.

"If you need a sedative..."

Trey blinks like Searle isn't speaking actual words. The sedatives they have on the ship are light, just enough to bust the edge of adrenaline without preventing waking for an emergency. But they've been locked since long before the start of the mission, and Searle shuts anyone down before they can so much as look at the cabinet, much less ask about them. But it's in the procedures to tranq any crew member who's a problem, so keeping them locked is probably for morale more than anything.

"I have to get back to work," he says. He ignores his shaking hands.

He and Mace wear the gold suits when they shoot the parcel out of the side. As predicted, the thrusters work just enough to pull it away from the sun's gravity.

"Beacon is on," Icarus says in Trey's ears, as bland as ever.

But Cassie sounds happy, happier than she's been for days. "We're tracking."

Trey climbs into his bunk. He doesn't sleep - his heart races too much - but the blanket's cool and soft on his cheek, and he burrows in.

*

"I keep listening to it," Harvey says, flicking his pointer fingers against each other as his jiggles his legs.

"To the distress beacon?" Searle asks, tapping his fingers on his desk. His face is a little tight from sun exposure. It's been like that for days.

Harvey bobs his head. "It's all I can really hear this far out. But I keep...I keep _looking_ for it, you know?"

Searle nods. "It's a big unknown. Only natural."

"Yeah, but..." Harvey exhales hard. "I don't want to. I want the ship to disappear completely or just...shut up. You know?"

Searle taps on his computer. "A half-hour in the Earth room?"

"Sure."

The display beeps as forest appears through the frosted glass. "An hour it is."

Harvey doesn't smile, but he stops wringing his hands as he walks in.

*

No one wakes Corazon when it happens, and no one interrupts her morning plant inspection, but the grim faces over breakfast are a sign all their own.

"What happened?" she asks quietly as Capa pushes a pan over one of the stove's burners.

"The beacon went out at 0300 hours," he whispers back, just loud enough to be heard over boiling water.

Corazon looks for Cassie immediately. She has a book in her hands, but it's closed, and she stares unseeingly at the table in front of her. But she's not the only one. The only one who looks the same is Kaneda, but that's the reason he's captain: he stays even in the face of failure.

Capa misjudges her look. "Trey's taking it hard. Captain's orders, we're taking over his duties for today."

"Of course," Corazon says, picking up a bowl.

When she sits at the table, Kaneda asks, "O2 levels?"

"Still in surplus," Corazon says. She doesn't add that they're not adding as fast as they were before they slingshotted Mercury. Kaneda already knows, and the loosening shoulders around the table are reward enough.

*

Trey waits for Searle to leave the medical bay before slipping inside, and it doesn't take long; he takes the first segment of the rounds Trey would normally do.

It's against regulations and enough to get him court-martialed when they return to Earth. But he isn't sorry when he cracks the box of sedatives open with his wrench - not breaks, since he wants to at least try to cover his tracks - and he isn't sorry when he takes the entire contents out. Not when his eyes are burning from shed tears and hours of lost sleep.

Trey waits until he's back in his cabin to take the first. He has no idea how long it's supposed to take to kick in, but he knows there's no way it can be enough, so he takes another right away. He waits an hour for the third, and a half-hour beyond that for the fourth. He's so fuzzy - and still awake - at that point that he probably takes three or four, but he doesn't know.

It doesn't matter. If Trey had been sleeping, if he hadn't been worrying about the parcel and thinking of the bodies floating in the Icarus I and the people slowly freezing on Earth and the moon colonies, the beacon wouldn't have gone dead. Because he remembered the second after he made it to the flight deck he'd forgotten to fully compensate for Mercury's gravity, and it disappeared when it was supposed to be entering Mercury's orbit for slingshot. And so he needs to sleep. He _will_ sleep.

By the time his eyes droop, he wonders if he took too many. But he's too far gone to care.

*

"Captain."

Kaneda freezes. Searle's voice has the tone he never wants to hear. It's the same as when his superiors called him after the Icarus I disappearance.

"I'll be right there," he says into the comm, and he jogs.

Sure enough, when he gets to the medical bay, Trey's laying on a slab, cold and motionless. Searle's eyes are wide and unseeing.

The only thing Kaneda can think is how cold the procedure for corpses is on a ship: a burial at sea, as it were. They don't have the facilities to keep a decaying body, and they have no way to cremate or condense.

So he clears his throat and says, "Prepare him. We should say a few words before."

Searle nods without looking over, but his gaze focuses at least a little. Kaneda's willing to bet money he'll be even more sunburned for the foreseeable future.

*

The service is a black hole. One minute, Capa's sitting in the kitchen; the next, everyone's standing and wiping their eyes. Except for Mace, who heads off Capa before he can disappear in the direction of the payload.

"Can you help me?" he asks quietly.

Capa frowns. It's not like their disciplines overlap much. "With what?"

Mace leads him to his computers, which are all submerged in the coolant. Tools lie all over deck, as well as a basic metal frame with a few welds.

"Thought we didn't have enough for a second parcel," Capa says.

Mace shakes his head. "We've got extras on top of extras. Not enough to weigh us down, but if something goes out, we should still have enough for replacements. If the problem isn't too big."

"If the problem isn't too big," Capa repeats, staring down at the frame. "Did Trey know?"

"Didn't..." There's a quick hitch in Mace's voice. "Didn't get a chance to tell him. And he was my extra pair of hands."

"I'm not so good with hands-on," Capa says.

"So I'll tell you what to do."

Instead of answering, Capa sits beside him. The only sound in the room comes from the tools they use to finish the frame.

*

Harvey does his best to make up for Trey's loss, but he isn't surprised when Icarus starts talking to him.

"Thrusters damaged, Harvey," she says in her infuriatingly calm voice as a counter to the throbbing of Icarus I's distress call.

Everyone gathers quickly, and when Kaneda asks for volunteers to try to fix what's broken, Harvey steps forward. If only so he can get out of the flight deck.

He used to find the spacesuits too small, the sound of his panting and the crackle of the comm too oppressive, but floating out into the darkness of space is actually...soothing.

Of course, the Sun's much closer now than it's ever been, so the darkness doesn't last. He can feel the outer layer of his suit start to melt as he and Kaneda make their way to the payload exterior. They don't have much time.

He's better with tools than Kaneda, which isn't saying much - the gloves are thick, too thick to do detailed work easily - but he manages most of the close work. He only stops when he starts to feel the heat in his hands.

"You should go back," he tells Kaneda. "I'll finish."

"You can't--"

"We need this finished." Harvey looks up for emphasis, but instead of looking into Kaneda's face, he sees a blaze of golden light. It's the reflection of sunlight off the suit, he knows it is. But it looks like a halo of fire, and Harvey has to believe that something will rise from the ashes. Just like everyone on Earth had to believe it.

"Go," he says.

Kaneda flies back, and Harvey gets back to work. His hands glow beneath him.

*

Eight people filled Icarus II comfortably. Six people make it feel like a ghost town.

It wasn't like Cassie saw everyone much; she monitored things during most of the communal time, and with the library of books under her bunk, she didn't mind much. But she still saw Harvey during his breaks, listening to transmissions like he did on duty. She still saw Trey bent over his calculations. Not anymore.

Corazon is still in the oxygen garden most of her time, along with the humid air and the swaying plants. She's not actively working; she's running leaves through her fingers, her brilliant smile finally tempered, but somehow, still there.

"You missed the meeting," she says when Cassie walks up without looking over.

Cassie was on the flight deck with everyone else when Harvey died. She saw the sensors that said the thrusters had only made it back to 65% strength. No meeting could give her any information she didn't have. "I know."

"We can send a last message," Corazon says. "Mace is sending the second parcel at 1400 hours."

"I already recorded." Cassie had done it on her own while everyone else was in the meeting, since Harvey wasn't around to help her out. She hadn't said much - she'd said everything to her family before she'd blasted off, before they'd reached the dead zone - but she hadn't needed to. When she was with her family on Earth, they usually huddled in their houses with their heaters on and didn't talk much. It was the companionship that counted. And she could give that to them, one last time.

Corazon smiles at her. It's sad, but there. Cassie reaches out a hand and cups her cheek. Corazon closes her eyes and leans into her touch.

If she'd tried to guess in advance, she would've guessed Corazon to be a delicate lover, all romance and longing gazes. But she moves decisively, grinning against Cassie's mouth, pulling off her pants in a rush. Cassie laughs in gasped surprise as Corazon trails her fingers down her sides, sighs as Corazon's fingers slide inside her, cries in small whimpers as her tongue slides over her clit. She shivers as she comes, Corazon's hands moving soothingly over her thighs as she does, green leaves twitching above her head.

When she's recovered enough, she pushes Corazon down for her turn. Cassie smiles the whole time, even as her eyes sting with tears.

*

They all gather to send off the second parcel. Only Capa and Mace stand inside the air lock in the remaining suits, but the others are pressed against the door.

For a moment, it doesn't look like the parcel will make it; it drifts obviously toward the sun until the thrusters fire, but when they do, it shoots off in a blaze.

Capa grins at Mace. "It'll make it."

"Yeah," Mace says back. "It will."

*

The parcel could've landed in the ocean. It could've landed in some Arctic wasteland, or any patch of land that didn't see human habitation. Instead, it lands in a flare in the middle of the night in the desert near Los Angeles. No one sees it in the gloom.

But the sun rose, still as brilliant as the first day it had shone with its renewed glow, and people found the crater. And all the intact computer chips inside.

**Author's Note:**

> Contains: Suicide (which can be taken as accidental or intentional), major character death in line with the ones in the movie (minus the violence).


End file.
